Aviary

Aviary is an interactive environment designed in collaboration with Parallel Development, with a sound composition by Erik Carlson. The playful audio-visual sculpture responds to touch through displays of light and sounds that evoke the effects of a bird in flight or their natural habitat. Like a shared musical instrument, Aviary can be “played” by one or many users. Each pole has a unique series of sounds that form a family of sounds. A casual touch creates a vertical burst of light, while a sustained hold slowly fills the column with light. Depending on where the pole is touched, the sound response is unique, with bird calls near the top of the pole, and abstract bird-like sounds near the bottom. Sliding up and down the pole causes the sounds to be blended in a unique and real-time sound effect. A quick slide up the pole, causes a burst of light to float up to the top and a then migrate to adjacent poles. The gesture is like the releasing of a bird, allowing it to fly up and to circle around. The light and sounds of the bird calls migrate up the spiral if it was an upward gesture, and down the spiral if it was a downward gesture.